24-11-2003 12:25 am Paris/Nairobi - Twenty five million dollars is urgently needed to lift the threat of imminent extinction from humankind’s closest living relatives, delegates to an international crisis meeting on the great apes announced today at UNESCO.

Such a sum, says UNESCO and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), is essential for reducing the risk of extinction of the world’s remaining gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos and orangutans, and for establishing areas where ape populations could stabilise or even increase.

“$25 million is the bare minimum we need, the equivalent of providing a dying man with bread and water,” said Klaus Toepfer, UNEP Executive Director. “The clock is standing at one minute to midnight for the great apes, animals that share more than 96 percent of their DNA with humans. If we lose any great ape species we will be destroying a bridge to our own origins, and with it part of our own humanity,” he said.

“Great apes form a unique bridge to the natural world,” said Koïchiro Matsuura, UNESCO Director-General. “The forests they inhabit are a vital resource for humans everywhere, and for local people in particular a key source of food, water, medicine as well as a place of spiritual, cultural and economic value. Saving the great apes and the ecosystems they inhabit is not just a conservation issue but a key action in the fight against poverty.”

Every one of the great ape species is at high risk of extinction, either in the immediate future or at best within 50 years.

“Research indicates that the western chimpanzee has already disappeared from three countries - Benin, the Gambia and Togo,” said Samy Mankoto, a UNESCO expert on biosphere reserves in Africa, which are home to several great ape populations.

UNESCO and UNEP, co-ordinators of the Great Apes Survival Project (GRASP), fear that if urgent action is not taken the next wave of country-level extinction could take place in Senegal, where a mere 200 to 400 wild chimpanzees remain.

Other countries where the fate of the western chimpanzee hangs in the balance include Ghana, which has just 300 to 500 left, and Guinea Bissau where the population is down to less than 200 individual animals.

The plight of the western chimpanzee is just one of the great ape species on the agenda of the unprecedented gathering of experts and government representatives in Paris this week.

Under the auspices of UNEP and UNESCO, representatives from the 23 great ape home “range states” in Africa and South East Asia as well as donor governments, UN agencies, NGOs and other GRASP partners are meeting to draw up nothing less than a survival plan for the great apes.

GRASP has four patrons, namely, Jane Goodall, the celebrated primate conservationist, Russ Mittermeier, head of Conservation International, Toshisada Nishida of Kyoto University, one of the world's most famous and longest-serving primatologists, and Richard Leakey, world famous conservationist and palaeoanthropologist.

“I doubt if there is any challenge of greater importance than that presented by the current status of the great apes,” said Richard Leakey. “Conservationists and governments must come together to put the necessary measures in place to ensure that the bonobos, chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans are saved from extinction. This must be the point of departure for the Paris meeting.”

The great apes are under increasing threat of extinction as the result of various human activities. Growing human populations encroaching on their habitat, civil wars, poaching for meat, the live animal trade, and above all, the destruction of forests are increasingly taking their toll.

According to a recent UNEP report, “The Great Apes – the road ahead”, less than 10 percent of the remaining forest habitat of the great apes of Africa will be left relatively undisturbed by 2030 if road building, construction of mining camps and other infrastructure developments continue at current levels.

Findings for the orangutans of South East Asia appear even bleaker. The report indicates that in 28 years time there will be almost no habitat left that can be considered “relatively undisturbed”.

Many great ape populations live in extremely remote areas, which are difficult to map, let alone monitor. To improve the data, UNESCO works with the European Space Agency to use satellites or remote sensing to better monitor the rate of habitat destruction. The project has begun by mapping the habitats of the mountain gorilla. Only about 600 are alive in Uganda, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

The project will compare satellite image archives to assess changes in gorilla habitats since 1992 in the Virunga National Park (DRC) and Bwindi Impenetrable National Park (Uganda), which are UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The Parc National des Volcans (Rwanda) and Mgahinga Gorilla National Park (Uganda) may soon join this list.

At the same time, UNESCO is working with local rangers to help improve law enforcement and monitoring in all five of the DRC’s World Heritage Sites, which are home to several great ape species.

“Law enforcement is an essential but single element in any conservation effort. We cannot just
put up fences to try and separate the apes from people,” said Samy Mankoto of UNESCO. “Great apes
play a key role in maintaining the health and diversity of tropical forests, which people depend upon. They disperse seeds throughout the forests, for example, and create light gaps in the forest canopy which allow seedlings to grow and replenish the ecosystem.”

To better understand great apes, studies are underway in several UNESCO biosphere reserves that are home to chimpanzee, gorilla and orangutan. One of the most important populations of wild chimpanzees lives in the Taï Biosphere Reserve in Côte d’Ivoire, where a team of zoologists has been studying their behaviour since 1979. Much of what we know today about orangutan toolmaking is from studies in the Tanjung Puting Biosphere Reserve in Indonesia. These studies are combined with a variety of projects to reconcile conservation with the needs of local communities.

Since it was launched in May 2001, GRASP has seen 16 of the 23 great ape range states apply new conservation measures specifically designed for these species. Policy making workshops have already been held in six of these countries, bringing together stakeholders from government, academia and private industry as well as non-governmental organizations and the United Nations. These have lead to the drafting of national plans that show exactly how the necessary funds can be applied to make a real difference to ape numbers on the ground.

“It’s basic arithmetic,” said Rob Hepworth, Deputy Director of UNEP’s division of environmental conventions. “The multiplication of threats to the endangered apes. The division of their habitats. The subtraction in overall ape numbers. To get the sums right, we need the addition of the value which the GRASP WSSD [World Summit for Sustainable Development] Partnership is already providing – a focused effort by two major UN agencies, four wildlife conventions, and eighteen NGOs to raise awareness, raise funds, and raise our conservation game so we stop the great apes from becoming history.”

The meeting in Paris this week will develop a Global Great Ape Conservation Strategy. It will also prepare for an inter-governmental ministerial conference on great apes and GRASP to be held in late 2004.

The meeting at UNESCO Headquarters opens at 9am on Wednesday, November 26.
There will be a press conference at Friday, November 28 at 1p.m.
Journalists wishing to attend should register with the UNESCO Press Service, Tel: +33 (0) 1 45 68 17 44

UNESCO has a network of more than 400 biosphere reserves in over 90 countries, many of which have extremely important populations of great apes which are also found in dozens of World Heritage Sites. For a full list, www.unesco.org/mab

Report - Great Apes - the road ahead

Great Apes - the road ahead is edited by Dr Christian Nellemann of UNEP Grid-Arendal in Norway and Dr Adrian Newton of UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre in Cambridge, UK. It is available on-line at www.globio.info

The results are based on a pioneering new method of evaluating the wider impacts of infrastructure development on key species that, in this study, are the chimpanzee, bonobo or pygmy chimpanzee, the gorilla and the orangutan.

The report looks in detail at each of the four great ape species to assess the current, remaining habitat deemed relatively undisturbed and thus able to support viable populations of apes. The experts have then mapped the likely impact and area of healthy habitat left in 2030 at current levels of infrastructure growth.

Gorilla
The study estimates that around 28 percent, or some 204,900 square kilometres of remaining gorilla habitat, can be classed as relatively undisturbed.

If infrastructure growth continues at current levels, the area left by 2030 is estimated to be 69,900 square kilometres or just 10 percent. It amounts to a 2.1 percent, or 4,500 square kilometre, annual loss of low-impacted gorilla habitat in countries including Nigeria, Gabon, Rwanda and Uganda.

Chimpanzee
The study estimates that around 26 percent, or some 390,840 square kilometres of remaining chimpanzee habitat, can be classed as relatively undisturbed.

If infrastructure growth continues at current levels, the area left by 2030 is estimated to be 118,618 square kilometres or just eight percent. It amounts to a 2.3 percent, or 9,070 square kilometre, annual loss of low-impacted chimpanzee habitat from countries including Guinea, Côte D’Ivoire and Gabon.

Bonobo
The study estimates that around 23 percent, or some 96,483 square kilometres, of remaining bonobo habitat, can be classed as relatively undisturbed.

If infrastructure growth continues at current levels, the area left by 2030 is estimated to be 17,750 square kilometres or just four percent. It amounts to a 2.8 percent, or 2,624 square kilometre, annual loss of low-impacted bonobo habitat from the Democratic Republic of the Congo—the only country in which they are found.

Orangutan
The study estimates that around 36 percent, or some 92,332 square kilometres, of remaining orangutan habitat, can be classed as relatively undisturbed.

If infrastructure growth continues at current levels, the area left by 2030 is estimated to be 424 square kilometres or less than one percent. It amounts to a five percent, or 4,697 square kilometre, annual loss of low-impacted orangutan habitat from the islands of Sumatara (Indonesia) and Borneo (Indonesia - Kalimantan and Malaysia - Sarawak and Sabah).

GRASP is registered with the Commission for Sustainable Development as a Partnership under the World Summit for Sustainable Development (September 2002 in Johannesburg Summit). As a WSSD partnership, GRASP endeavours to ensure the conservation of the great apes and their habitat, now and in the future, and thus support the continuation of diverse ecosystems and viable wildlife populations.
The WSSD’s Plan of Implementation emphasises that “biodiversity, which plays a critical role in overall sustainable development and poverty eradication, is essential to our planet, human well-being and the livelihood and cultural integrity of people.”